Going offshore to escape the CFTC

Under what circumstances did you have “data feed issues”?

I haven’t seen any problems myself, not on Forex anyway…
Maybe you’re talking about non-Forex instruments?..

hyperscalper

Please do any American readers have any up to date information about how easy or difficult it is to wire money from an American bank to an offshore broker? This is for clients, who may want a substantial account. I realise this thread tends to be for personal trading only, but I should be grateful if you could please accept this as a genuine question. My partner and I wish to use TradersWay, and prefer clients to do same, but we don’t want them to run into difficulties with transfers.

Jikkie, just from a brokers perspective there are no problems even with large wires from the US. At least not with TradeWiseFX.

Yeah, it was on their CFDs. DAX to be specific. They claimed innocence on the 2nd round of outages and I couldn’t exit my P&L, which then ran about 175 points against me lol.

Well, May 2 is upon us, and we’ve had no comments on this question since my last request.

Apparently, there is no enthusiasm at this time for designating LMFX as a Trusted Broker.

If I’m wrong about that, and some of you would like to make the case for LMFX, please make it now.

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I have only demo traded with them so far so I won’t have a true opinion of them until I open a live account down the road. So far I like the fact that when I have contacted customer service a couple of times they have got right back to me and answered my questions. I have been happy with the performance and spread of my demo trading and like their clean website layout.

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I have been trading live with LMFX for about 2 and half months now and I have also withdrawn funds and the customer service is prompt and helpful. I say we can trust them.

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Who is accepting US traders (Mt 5 platform)?

FX Choice offers Meta Trader 5 platform.

You should contact good and experienced IRS Lawyer,they definitely helps you and provide you best solution to your problem.

• Clearly, there isn’t widespread enthusiasm for designating [B]LMFX[/B] as a Trusted Broker at this time.

The (very few) comments we have had on this issue have been positive for LMFX. But, so few members with actual LMFX trading experience have responded to our request for comments, that we just don’t have a basis, at this time, for making the Trusted Broker designation.

The option to designate LMFX as a Trusted Broker will remain open.

This question can be discussed again, and put to a vote, at any time in the future.

• All the old red ink has been removed from the List.

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It looks like American traders can kiss Profiforex goodbye, permanently. Recently I tried to make some trades on the Profiforex Metatrader 4 platform, and each time a message promptly appeared saying “Trade is disabled.” So I emailed support asking if the trades have been blocked because I am an American resident. Here is their reply:

Dear XXXXXXXX,

Thank you for your email! Unfortunately, we can no longer offer our services to traders from the U.S. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Kind Regards,

Jessica Brad
Profiforex Technical Support Team
Profiforex

I guess I should now check out more fully LMFX as a primary or secondary, backup broker.

Thanks for this update, compounder.

Back in April, john81az posted that he had been told by someone at Profiforex that they do accept U.S. clients, despite the statement to the contrary on their website —

John thought that this might be a case of a “public statement” on the website to satisfy the CFTC, versus a “private policy” of acceptance out of sight of the CFTC.

Not so, apparently.

We can forget about Profiforex, along with the rest of the Seychelles.

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First off, excellent thread! Hard to find quality info and insight on this topic. This thread is liquid gold as far as I am concerned. Thumbs up to Clint and everyone else contributing to it.

Offshore newbie here. I debated as to whether I should post here or Newbie Island. I felt this forum was appropriate so I apologize if I’m wrong.

OK - my questions and then my details and rational. Please guide me because offshore is something I know nothing about.

Does offshore make sense for me this early in the game?
I am going to do a demo account. Obviously, I’d like to demo a broker I’m serious about opening an account with. As far as I can see, the only option domestically is FXCM. I have no experience with them. I’ve heard a lot about them over the past few years and it seems to be 6 to 5 and pick 'em with that broker. Lots of good and lots of bad opinions. They are regulated and I could use Ninja Trader with them instead of MT4. Not a must but it would be nice to have that platform. Right now, I’m considering FX CHOICE (offshore Belize). Seems like they could offer close to ECN type services, and they do have MT5. Possibly the extra perks would be flipping the bird to the NFA/CFTC and having higher leverage at my disposal. To be honest, I don’t see myself ever using anything above 50:1 anyway. I was seriously only going to go up to 20:1. I don’t have enough skill or experience to utilize higher leverages.

Are the offshore money transfer fees as bad as I think?
I’ve looked at the deposit/withdrawal process and it seems to be messy. I’d have to pay my bank fees, then a company like ePayments has their own fee schedule! For now, money will not be moving. It would just be deposited to start a live account when I’m ready and then add more funds if necessary. Maybe I’m not seeing this clearly and the fees are not as bad as I imagine for a US resident?

MY CURRENT PLAN
I want to demo for the next 6 months or so then go live. I plan on depositing around $1000 or so to test the waters and trade one trade at a time and only 1 micro lot at a time. Experience, psychological discipline, skill development and successful trading are my goals for the next year, not making huge profits. I’m a swing trader looking to hold trades for a few days at most initially and not hold any trades open over the weekends. Hopefully, by this time next year I’ll consider myself ready and will then deposit 5-10k. Additionally, I was planning on using 2 different demo accounts to compare the data and prices against each other. Example - do demo trades on FX Choice and use FXCM demo for visual comparison.

ABOUT ME
Not new to trading (certainly not a pro either!) but new-ish to Forex. I live in NJ. I have run two successful businesses so I understand discipline, risk and money management all too well. I traded commodities and Forex years ago, and got eaten alive trading with some partners that ‘had a system’. Never again! lol I’ve learned and grown up a lot since then. I’ve spent the past 5 years educating myself, reading the great tomes by the likes of Alexander Elder, etc. Yes, I even went through the School of Pipsology last week. (It was excellent by the way) We all know the nightmare that is known as finding a decent broker in the USA because of the NFA/CFTC rules.

So, does it make sense for me or should I just eat it and go with a big box broker like FXCM?

Thanks for any and all advice about GOING OFFSHORE !

Hi,

Haven’t posted in awhile, but wanted to offer my thoughts. I agree you should demo with the broker you will ultimately go live with. I have been trading offshore for about 4 years now and the past year and a half have been exclusively with Trader’s Way. I have used 7 offshore brokers, including 3 that are no longer accessible to US clients, I have found Trader’s Way offers the tightest spreads, lowest commission and best execution out of all 7. Do not trade with a US broker, aside from the leverage, hedging and FIFO, the bottom line is the brokers here are crooks. Other than one broker who requires 10K and has a horrible platform, there are no ECN brokers, they are all trading against you, playing tricks like platform freezing, price spikes for no reason, etc. and despite the NFA/CFTC touting the toughest regulation in the world, they do nothing but slap some hands and issue fines. If they were really looking out for the trader, we would have segregated accounts or some type of funds protection, but the CFTC doesn’t even allow it even if the brokers wanted to offer it. So, yes, definitely go offshore, keep 70% of your trading capital in your own bank as you only need 10% to execute the same trades. I haven’t deposited in awhile, but I’ll provide you my contact there and over a certain amount, he will waive the fee. I pay 1% + a $5 fee to withdrawal. So really no big deal at all. I withdrawal weekly and always in my bank in 3 business days.

For me I’m still thinking between Trader’s Way and FXChoice!?
I really dislike MT4, SOOOO archaic compared to Ninja Trader.
FXCM, is COMPLETELY out of the question for me; NOTORIOUS and BLATANT STOP HUNTERS!

I’ll keep my reply brief because I don’t want to clutter this thread or change it’s direction or purpose.

Thanks for the response. Those were pretty much my thoughts and concerns too. I demo traded on MB Trading for a while then they got bought up by Trade (bucket shop) King. As far as I’m concerned, they were the last good Forex broker in the US. I can’t believe in this country that we have so few and such horrible options for Forex brokers. Oh wait, yes I can believe because it’s the same thing with the cable industry. lol End of rant.

I was told today by FinPro that they do not accept US clients.

I never got the email about this from them my live account is still active currently. I also have not found anything on FinPro site mentioning this. Did they tell you this in a live chat session?

fin pro platform is horrible & cust service is a mess i trade with Brendale & tradewise & LMFX so far so good all live accounts LMFX & tradeiwse has good spreads on ECN so cross my fingers .